Java's forgotten pearls: the history and disappearance of pearl fishing in the Segara Anakan lagoon, South Java, Indonesia

Pearls have been a valued resource in most cultures that had access to them. A number of historically important pearling grounds were situated in the waters around today's Indonesia. One of these areas, now largely forgotten, was the Segara Anakan lagoon in South Java. In the seventeenth century, Dutch colonists exploited the lagoon's pearls. Afterwards, the lagoon's oysters were locally exploited as a food item until the late 1970s. While the pearl fishery attracted considerable attention in the colonial literature, its disappearance, by contrast, went largely undocumented. Nowadays, the oysters no longer are found in the lagoon as a result of extensive sedimentation processes. Their former existence is only preserved in the memory of local people. This article examines the history and fate of the pearls of Segara Anakan, providing an example of a formerly valued species whose existence simply became forgotten outside the area.     

Community resistance and the role of justice in shale gas development in the United Kingdom

Global energy policies embracing a transition to unconventional oil and gas development are hallmarks of many developed nations. Among these, the United Kingdom has framed the development of shale gas as one means to transition from high-carbon fossil-fuel consumption to low-carbon alternatives. Yet the introduction of this industry and recent legislation associated with it have not been without controversy. Communities throughout the United Kingdom are engaged in sustained debates concerning climate change, health, the scale of extraction footprints, securitisation, and governance. Places such as Kirby Misperton, the focus of this article, are representative of many villages where questions abound about the role of justice at all stages and scales of governmental decision-making. Using a legal geographic lens, this article examines narratives among local residents who are actively resisting the arrival of unconventional gas. I consider how the relationships between and among energy transition, policy, and justice have been interpreted by communities and argue for inequity and risk to be addressed in more transparent ways. I contend that highlighting counter-narratives remains essential if powerful arguments by governments and others are to be negated. Fundamentally, true justice can only prevail when all stakeholders are considered legitimate and their opinions valid.     

我们说什么?我们对谁去说?——在美国地理学家协会1987年年会上的讲话

地理学家的演讲与他们运用文字、图象所作的交流同样值得重视.美国的地理学可以通过下述途径得到加强,即围绕地点、地区和全球联系发展实质性演讲,促进自然地理的发展,恢复地理生态的传统.地理信息系统(geographic information systems)对于完成上述任务,对于改进地理学科以满足不断出现的需要,将是一个非常有用的工具.如果我们能够避免自己拆自己的台,避免不现实的空想,避免玩弄语言技巧,而是坚持在大学里进行高质量的教学,并在教师和从事地理实践工作的人员之间开展学术交流,那么地理学将会变得更加有效.我们有一个前所未有的机会来帮助改进美国的中小学地理教育.     

The many shades of grey in urban governance: How illegality shapes urban planning,policy and development

Most research on urban planning, policy and development only considers legal practices and actors, and treats illegal ones as insignificant anomalies, unable to structurally affect the governance of urban space. However, this approach is inadequate for explaining urban governance in contexts (e.g. several countries in the Global South, the former Soviet bloc and Southern Europe) where illegal practices such as corruption and organized crime infiltration are widespread in many public and economic sectors. This paper addresses the role of illegal actors and practices in urban governance in the Italian context, using urban regime theory as the theoretical frame of reference. The research centres on the analysis of two case studies in the city of Rome (the In-between world investigation of a criminal network that had infiltrated the local administration and shaped several urban policies, and the investigation of episodes of corruption related to the project for the new A.S. Roma soccer stadium). It shows the existence of two shades of ‘grey urban governance’: firstly, the presence of a dark urban regime, centred on a criminal organisation and parallel to the ‘regular’ one; secondly, the use of corruption as a customary practice with which real estate entrepreneurs influence municipal decisions. Overall, this research contributes to moving away from a rhetoric of ‘gentlemanly’ urban capitalism and politics, and suggests the need to revise several aspects of urban regime theory – as well as other approaches to urban governance dynamics in general – in order to incorporate the role of illegal actors and practices.     

四川区域中心馆藏文物保存环境监测平台常见故障分析与改进措施

四川省馆藏文物保存环境监测区域中心(简称四川区域中心)平台,经过两年多的运行实践,实现了12家博物馆监测站的集成联网。本研究分析了区域中心监测平台运行中常见故障现象的表现形式、故障原因及故障率。结果表明:监测平台的主要故障现象为传输异常和数据异常;除温湿度外的其他监测终端故障率较高;软件平台建设也不够完善,导致数据利用率低,尚不能实现风险评估、预测预警和预防调控等管理功能。针对分析发现的问题,提出一些相应的技术措施和管理措施,为有效降低故障的发生率,提升国内区域中心平台建设提供一定的指导和参考。     

馆藏文物描述元数据方案探讨

信息社会中博物馆的知识传播职能从被动转向主动,博物馆采用信息技术管理藏品和相关数据,不仅要满足传统业务需求,也要面向网络环境中的使用者。在此过程中,文物藏品信息在互联网环境下的呈现,需要采用标准化的描述元数据方案和受控词汇描述文物的核心信息。该研究首先说明文物数据标准的定义与类型,阐述文物描述元数据的概念与作用,并对比CONA、CDWA Lite、Object ID和第一次全国可移动文物普查的描述元数据方案,说明元数据方案差异反映出的设计需求和结果差异;再进一步对比大英博物馆、大都会博物馆、北京故宫博物院、台北故宫博物院线上文物藏品检索方式,通过检视其检索结果的信息结构与内容,阐述合理的描述元数据方案能呈现丰富信息并导向精准检索。最后建议我国文物博物馆领域应完善文物数据标准,文博机构应制定规范化的文物描述元数据方案和配套实施的编目规则与本地受控词表;文博机构官网在线藏品检索系统应考虑用户需求,呈现完善的编目成果。     

Information transparency,monitoring, and incentives under decentralization: Evidence from China's fiscal reform of “province managing county”

Monitoring is deemed crucial for the incentivization of a decentralized organization, but its function relies on information transparency between the central authority and the delegated individuals. We test this hypothesis by considering changes in the fiscal behavior of Chinese county governments following an exogenous fiscal reform in 2004/2005 that removed information obstacles between provinces and counties. Employing data on 590 Chinese counties from 2000 to 2009, we find that counties in the reform provinces adopt a more proactive fiscal policy after the reform, suggesting that they become more incentivized in the political competition for economic growth. Such effects are stronger in counties with fewer competing peers and counties with either high or low ranks in the records of economic growth among peers. The increase in counties' productive spending leads to higher economic growth in later years.     

The Making of a Regulatory Crisis: Restructuring New York City's Water Supply

Much practically orientated environmental research is marked by a polarity between functionalist abstraction and ahistorical normative discourse. This paper seeks to bridge the divide between theoretical and empirical research through a case study of New York City's water supply. Current processes of socio-economic restructuring are leading to negative environmental consequences obscured by a failure to extend analysis beyond limited temporal, spatial or sectoral scales. Insights from regulationist theory show that a combination of fiscal, political and other developments are bringing about a wide-ranging reformulation of existing patterns of environmental regulation and service provision in the city. The power of the state is being radically diminished in relation to the power of capital and a plethora of different interest groups. A relatively simple centralized model of environmental regulation is being transformed into a complex decentralized pattern involving the emergence of new approaches to urban governance. Further research is needed on the contradictions between capitalist accumulation and environmental regulation at different spatial scales in order to link New York's changing role within the global economy to the declining political legitimacy and fiscal capability of the state to play an extensive role in environmental management.     

Pursuing Moral Governance

A millennium ago in Northern Song (960–1127) China, Emperor Huizong initiated the “Eight Virtues of Conduct” in order to recruit morally upright officials. In place of the candidates’ skills in literary composition and understanding of the Confucian classics, this scheme adopted candidates’ moral virtues as their major criterion of selection. This paper analyzes how this scheme was implemented. It also shows that the rejection of certain genuinely virtuous nominees and the recruitment of some candidates who had exhibited objectionable conduct somehow compromised the emperor’s ideal. This analysis is followed by a discussion of the political and social implications of the scheme. Instead of perceiving this promotion channel as a means for Huizong and Chief Councilor Cai Jing to eliminate dissidents and install ideological conformity, the author argues that the scheme was an initiative of the emperor to counter the chief councilor’s dominance and alleviate factional conflicts. The final section examines the extent to which this scheme facilitated social mobility in the Song dynasty.     

Fostering and planning urban regeneration: the governance of cultural districts in Copenhagen

Policy-makers and urban planners struggle to find the right formula to implement urban regeneration processes based on cultural assets, often focusing on the desired outcomes, but rarely questioning how the policy process can shape them. This paper examines different governance models for the implementation and organization of cultural districts, and evaluates how they can affect their actual realization by investigating three cases in Copenhagen, Denmark. The deindustrialization of Copenhagen left many of the city’s harbour areas disused and in turn provided the opportunity to develop three new cultural districts in the city centre. The paper contributes to the literature on cultural districts by matching specificities and contingencies attached to a particular urban area with the governance model adopted for its development. The paper claims that temporal experimentation has to be included in cultural planning and a mix of bottom-up and top-down approaches is more desirable than both a totally unregulated initiative and a real estate-driven development and a totally unregulated initiative, as it ensures that initiatives remain financially viable and that the creative workers and companies retain a certain control of the area development, and in turn counteracts gentrification.